If you are a child reading this on your own, or with a parent, a nanny, or a granddad, whoever – this is for you.

Year 5 children near you are doing extra work to prepare for the 11+ exam, and if you are in year 5 you need to start too, and now. You need to study Maths, Verbal Reasoning and non Verbal Reasoning, every week, so this blog will be updated every week, just as if you were attending tuition. I am a professional 11+ tutor but I am sharing my weekly notes, tips, and free clips to other people’s videos and practice questions, all for free, nada, gratis. Here we go…

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Maths

Place Value

What comes after the Thousands? If you answered ‘millions,’ take a look at the chart below. There are two extra columns in-between the thousands and the millions.

If you click on the image, it will link you to teaching videos, and interactive practice questions. Resist any urges to randomly click around the sites I have linked you to; stick the sections that are relevant to the Bucks 11+. The Khan Academy clips and the BBC clips are wonderful, but they are not targeted at the 11+ in Bucks the way this blog is. The whole point of this blog, is to focus on the questions that will be on the Bucks 11+ papers.

This next section is for all students. The screen shot below is from the Khan academy website. Watch all vidoes marked in the left hand column of the site, (in blue writing). You do not need to do all of the sections, only the first seven: ‘finding place value’ to ‘place value when mulitiplying and dividing by 10’. Then stop.

Going from the millions column (Mill) to the Millionths (Millths) column will be new to some of you in year 5, but that is for your interest only. The 11+ is focused on the tens of thousands to the thousandths – the section highlighted in bold.

Let’s start off with the fairly easy clips.

Write out the column names (in pen,) write the numbers below in the columns (in pencil,) to help you at first.

The video below contains gets a little bit harder and contains more tutorials on place value and some place value practice. (Do all four sections.)

About two hours, but there are a lot of practice materials and so some might need to be done over several days. You can only practice ten IXL questions per day, so I definitely recommend using that daily.

Verbal Reasoning

Lesson 1 Alphabet Numbers

In what position are the letters E, J, O, T and Y?

There is a question aimed at the position of the letters in the alphabet, so you should learn these positions beforehand to save precious time in the exam. You don’t have learn each one individually, though you can eventually, but to start off with it’s important that you know which letter comes 5th,(look at the line above) 10th, (look at the line above) 15th, (look) 20th (look) and 25th (you can probably guess that one).

That way, to find the letter at position 21, you don’t always have to start at A is 1 and waste time.

For example, to find the 21st letter, you can say the 20th letter is T (as in T for twenty) and then you only have to count on one number – much quicker.

Test yourself:

What letter is in position 5?

What letter is in position 10?

Whate letter is in position 15?

What letter is in position 20?

What letter is in position 25?

Learn them. Then….

What letter is in position 6? Find the letter in position 5 and count on one letter.

What letter is in postition 11? Find the letter in postion 10 and count on.

What letter is in position 16? Find letter in position 15 and…

What letter is in position 21?

22?

Learn them, then test yourself.

What is the middle letter of the alphabet? It is helpful to remember that there are two in the middle of the alphabet, numbers 13 and 14. Those letters are 13=M, 14=N.

What letter is in position number 15?

You no longer HAVE to start at the beginning of the alphabet and count all the way on.

What position is the letter W in?

What position is the letter J in?

What position is the letter P in?

What position is the letter U in?

What is the alphabet position of the first letter of the word:

MASTER?

NEON?

UNDERSTAND?

The fastest way to find the middle letter of a word: (trust me it really is the fastest)

TWINKLY

-WINKL- Cross off the first letter and the last letter

–INK — Cross off the second letter and the second to last letter

—N— until you are left with one letter

You may be able to see clearly which letter is in the middle when you have only 3 letters left. If so, there is no need to waste time crossing them off. However, do use the crossing off method the rest of the time. Not only is it quicker, it is more accurate.

What is the alphabet position of the middle letter of the word:

AMAZING?

ADORE?

PUPPY?

ENJOY?

DIPLODOCOUS?

CARTOON?

If all the consonants were taken out of the alphabet, what position would the letter I hold in the word ACCOMPLISHMENT?TIP: the quickest method for doing this is to use the alphabet line above and lightly cross off the consonants, and count.

If all the vowels were taken out of the alphabet, what position would the letter H hold in the word HOTEL?

If all the letters in the word LIGHT were removed from the alphabet, what would be in the new position 14 of the alphabet?

If all the letters in the word BOOK were removed from the alphabet, what would be in the new position 19 of the alphabet?

If all the vowels in the word MISSISSIPPI were taken out of the alphabet, what position would the letter P be in?

If all the consonants in the word TERANODON were removed from the alphabet, what position would the letter N be in?

When you have learnt the alphabet and the positions of the letters frontwards, it is time to learn them backwards! If you have any dyslexic tendencies, it is best to leave this for another time in the future. The alphabet is confusing enough for you as it is!

If the alphabet was written backwards, what letter would be in position number:5?10?

15?

20?

25?

6?

11?

16?

21?

16?

Using the alphabet line above, if the alphabet was written backwards, what position would be held by the letter:J?

P?

D?

M?

N?

O?

Using the alphabet line above – if the alphabet was written backwards, what position would be held by the the middle letter of the word VEGETABLE? (lightly cross off)

If the alphabet was written backwards, what position would be first letter of the word WHITE be in? (the 11+ sends you left, right, and left again.)

If the word ALPHABET was written backwards, what position would the letter H be in?

Learn your alphabet numbers backwards, and it will save you lots of time in the exam!

This week’s 10 words

Improving your vocabulary is just a part of growing up, but it is especially important when you have the 11+ soon.

Put the word and the antonym into sentences. Try to use the words this week. Play a game with your family – cheer if someone uses one of the week’s words.

Non-Verbal Reasoning

Lesson 1. Reflection.

is a part of non-VR. (It is also part of Maths.)

Get a small mirror and look at the way things reflect in it. If there is a gap in-between the object and the mirror, the gap will be reflected. What is closest to the mirror will remain closest in the reflection, and what is furthest away will remain furthest away.

It won’t change shape, size, shading, number.

Where is the mirror line?

V

E

R

T

I

C

A

L

Or

H O R I Z O N T A L (like the horizon)

Click on the link below, read the entire page, do the exercises and the questions at the foot of the page.

https://www.mathsisfun.com/geometry/reflection.html

Additional work:

Look at letters and a variety of shapes (triangle, square, rhombus) in the mirror. Use a vertical mirror line, a horizontal one, and at an angle. Don’t just look at what happens, think about what happens.

Answers: What is the alphabet position of the first letter of the word:

MASTER? A: 13

NEON? A:14

UNDERSTAND? A:21

What is the alphabet position of the middle letter of the word:

AMAZING? A: 26

ADORE? A: 15

PUPPY? A: 16

ENJOY? A: 10

DIPLODOCOUS? A: 4

CARTOON? A:20

If all the vowels were taken out of the alphabet, what position would the letter H hold in the word ACCOMPLISHMENT? A: 6

If all the vowels were taken out of the alphabet, what position would the letter H hold in the word HOTEL? A: 6

If all the letters in the word LIGHT were removed from the alphabet, what would be in the new position 14 of the alphabet? A: J

If all the letters in the word BOOK were removed from the alphabet, what would be in the new position 19 of the alphabet? A: V

If all the vowels in the word MISSISSIPPI were taken out of the alphabet, what position would the letter P be in? A: 15

If all the consonants in the word TERANODON were removed from the alphabet, what position would the letter M be in? A: Only one of the consonants in teranodon comes before the M, and that is D, so there only one letter is taken out, so M goes up one place from position number 14 to position 13. A:13

Welcome to Week 6 of Tutor Doctor Buckinghamshire's blog. We will be looking at Finding the Hidden Word for Verbal Reasoning, and Sequences including, Square Numbers, Triangular numbers, Square Numbers, and of course, Primes, as well as the nth term in Maths.